Bechorot 7a ~ Pig x Sheep

In today's page of Talmud there is a debate regarding the crossbreeding of different species, and the possibility that a non-kosher animal (say, a pig) could fertilize a kosher animal (like a sheep):

בכורות ז, א

והאמר ר' יהושע בן לוי לעולם אין מתעברת לא טמאה מן הטהור ולא טהורה מן הטמא ולא גסה מן הדקה ולא דקה מן הגסה ולא בהמה מן חיה ולא חיה מן בהמה חוץ מר' אליעזר ומחלוקתו שהיו אומרים חיה מתעברת מבהמה

...R. Yehoshua ben Levi said: A non-kosher female can never conceive from a kosher male, nor a kosher female from a non-kosher male, nor a large animal from a small animal, nor a small animal from a large animal, nor a domesticated animal from a non-domesticated animal, nor a non-domesticated animal from a domesticated animal, except for R. Eliezer and his disputant [in Chulin 79b], who claimed that a non-domesticated animal can conceive from a domesticated animal...(Bechorot 7a)

Here is the Talmud in Bava Kama that records that view of “R. Eliezer and his disputant.”

בבא קמא עז, ב – עח, א

ואמר רבא זה בנה אב כל מקום שנאמר שה אינו אלא להוציא את הכלאים ...אמר לך ר"א כי איתמר דרבא לטמא שנולד מן הטהור ועיבורו מן הטמא...וטהורה מטמאה מי מיעברא אין דקיי"ל דאיעבר מקלוט 

Rava said this establishes a model and teaches that wherever the term שה [seh] is stated in the Bible, it is meant to exclude a hybrid... R. Eliezer would say to you  - when did Rava state his model?  With respect to a non-kosher animal that was born from a kosher mother and a non-kosher father...But can a kosher animal conceive from a non-kosher animal? Yes, for it has been established that this case refers to a kosher animal that was conceived from a [kosher mutant animal that was] born with uncloven hooves. (Bava Kamma 77b-78a)

A pig in sheep's clothing? Nope. Just a pig.

Here the Talmud claims that a non-kosher animal (say, a pig) could not fertilize a kosher animal (like a sheep). If an animal appears to have the features of a sheep-pig cross-breed, it is, in fact, the offspring of a kosher animal that is breed with another kosher animal but which looks non-kosher because of a mutation that causes it to have non-cloven hooves. Here is that case:

k= kosher; m= mutant, born with non-cloven hooves

Which leads to the question of the day: Can a kosher animal indeed successfully breed with a non-kosher animal? Let's take a look.

When a pig loves a sheep

Pigs have been known to act, well, like pigs, and copulate with sheep. But could this lead to a baby peep, or ship, or whatever you'd like to call it? There are pictures that suggest this may be so, but in actual fact this pig with wool is the rare Hungarian Mangalitza pig, and has no sheep ancestry.  

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Foster Dwight Coburn, a farmer who also served as the secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture published Swine in America; a text-book for Breeder, Feeder and Student, and on page 63 he made the following observation: 

There exists in some sections of Old Mexico a type of “hog” represented as the product of crossing a ram with a sow, and the term “Cuino” has been applied to this rather violent combination. The ram used as a sire to produce the Cuino is kept with the hogs from the time he is weaned. A resident of Mexico has given the following description of the Cuino: “The sow used to produce the Cuino belongs to any race, but as a rule to the Razor-Back family, which is the more numerous. There is never any difficulty with her accepting the ram when breeding time comes. The progeny is a pig—unmistakably a pig—with the form and all the characteristics of the pig, but he is entirely different from his dam if she is a Razor-Back. He is round-ribbed and blocky, his short legs cannot take him far from his sty, and his snout is too short to root with. His head is not unlike that of the Berkshire. His body is covered with long, thick, curly hair, not soft enough to be called wool, but which nevertheless he takes from his sire. His color is black, white-black, and white-brown and white. He is a good grazer and is mostly fed on grass with one or two ears of corn a day, and on these he fattens quickly. The Cuino reproduces itself, and is often crossed a second and third time with a ram. Be it what it may, the Cuino is the most popular breed of hogs in the state of Oaxaca, and became so on account of their propensity to fatten on little food.”

It may have been the most popular pig breed in Oxaca, but it was still rather an oddity in the US; newspapers found them interesting, as evidenced by two reports, from 1902 and 1908 about sheep-pig hybrids.  

The Minneapolis Journal, September 24, 1902, from here.

Los Angeles Herald. October 3, 1908, from here.

Species and interbreeding

Despite these reports, it would seem that the rule suggested by R. Yehoshua ben Levi is correct. Different species cannot successfully interbreed, because, well, because that's the definition of a species, as the Oxford English Dictionary makes clear:

A group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g., Homo sapiens.

So although it is a tautology, you get the idea: a species by definition can only breed with other members of its own species. If a pig and a sheep could breed and have offspring, they'd be members of the same species. But they are not. Pigs belong to genus Sus, and the species Scrofa, whereas sheep belong to the genus Ovis and the species Aries. Pigs have 38 chromosomes, and sheep have 54.  So they cannot cross-breed.  (Lions and tigers both have 38 chromosomes, so they can cross breed, and produce a liger.)

But it's not as simple as that.  Even if you don't have the same number of chromosomes, you can still sometimes breed outside your species. Horses have 64 chromosomes and donkeys have 62. Yet they can cross breed, resulting in a mule (if mom was a horse) or a hinny (if mum was a donkey), although these are nearly always sterile. Horses belong to the genus Equus and the species ferus, and donkeys belong to the same genus but to a different species, africanus.  Yet they can interbreed.  Which raises the question: should a horse and a donkey be re-classified as belonging to the same species? But that would be odd, because they look so different and act in very different ways.

These kinds of questions  are perplexing, and have challenged the world of biology since the time of Carl Linnaeus (d. 1778) who gave the world a way of categorizing and naming all living things called binomial nomenclature. Briefly it goes like this: the grey wolf belongs to the genus Canis and the species lupus.  Dogs belong to the same genus, Canis, and are a subspecies of wolves, so their scientific name is Canis lupus familiaris (which I suppose makes it a trinomial nomenclature).  We belong to the genus Homo and the species sapiens, whereas chimpanzees belong to a different genus and species, Pan troglodytes. Anyway just what gets a creature into one species class or another is a really challenging question, one that is still being played out in the scientific literature. There's even a 320 page book from the University of California Press in which the author "provides a new perspective on the relationship between philosophical and biological approaches" to the concept of a species. For now, though, R. Yehoshua ben Levi's generalization found in Bechorot is pretty close to the Linnaean taxonomy we use today.  We can also conclude that the general rule of the Talmud from today's daf, that a kosher animal could not successfully breed with a non-kosher one, is a pretty good rule of thumb.

“Every living thing loves its like,
and every person his own sort.
All creatures flock together with their kind.”

— Ecclesiasticus, 13:15.

[Repost from Bava Kama 77.]

From the Passover Archives ~ The Chemistry of Chametz

It is Pesach (Passover) on tomorrow night, so let’s review the chemistry of unleavened bread, called chametz.

מנחות ע,ב

מנא הני מילי אמר ריש לקיש אתיא לחם לחם ממצה כתיב הכא (במדבר טו, יט) והיה באכלכם מלחם הארץ וכתיב התם (דברים טז, ג) לחם עוני 

והתם גופה מנלן אמר ריש לקיש וכן תנא דבי ר' ישמעאל וכן תנא דבי ר' אליעזר בן יעקב אמר קרא (דברים טז, ג) לא תאכל עליו חמץ שבעת ימים תאכל עליו מצות לחם עוני דברים הבאים לידי חימוץ אדם יוצא בהן ידי חובתו בפסח יצאו אלו שאין באין לידי חימוץ אלא לידי סירחון

How do we know that matzah must be made from one of five species of grain [wheat, barley, oats spelt and rye]?  Reish Lakish said, and likewise a Sage of the school of Rabbi Yishmael taught, and likewise a Sage of the school of Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov taught, that the verse states: “You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat with it matzah, the bread of affliction” (Deuteronomy 16:3). This verse indicates that only with regard to substances that will come to a state of leavening does a person fulfill his obligation to eat matzah by eating them on Passover, provided that he prevents them from becoming leavened. This serves to exclude these foods, i.e., rice, millet, and similar grains, which, even if flour is prepared from them and water is added to their flour, do not come to a state of leavening but to a state of decay [sirḥon].

The important question we need to answer here is whether there is something fundamentally different about rice when compared to the five grain species that can become chametz. And is there any scientific support to the claim that rice spoils sooner than it ferments?

The Chemistry of bread making

To get at the answers we need to remind ourselves how plants make and consume starch. They take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and water from the soil, and using the energy contained in sunlight (and the magic of chlorophyll) convert the two into a large sugar molecule we call starch. Plants use this starch to store and provide them with energy.

If you grind up wheat (or many other species of grain) you make flour which contains loads of starch. In addition to starch, flour contains proteins and enzymes which become important when the flour is mixed with water. Without going down a rabbit-hole of detail, here in general is what happens. First, an enzyme called beta-amylase breaks the large starch molecule down into a smaller molecule called maltose which is made up of two molecules of glucose. Another enzyme, maltase, breaks down each molecule of maltose into two molecules of glucose which is then broken down further to provide the plant with energy. Here is what it looks like:

From Lloyd, James R and Kötting, Oliver (July 2016) Starch Biosynthesis and Degradation in Plants. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester.

If you add some yeast into that mix, a chemical reaction called fermentation occurs. Yeast, which is a fungus, consumes glucose and turns it into carbon dioxide and ethanol, which is an alcohol.

As the flour and water and yeast all mix together, two proteins in the flour called gliadin and glutenin (which are glutens) give the dough mixture its characteristic body, which strengthens the more it is mixed. The dough traps the carbon dioxide that is given off by the yeast cells, which causes the bread to rise. And that gives us the leavened bread we call chametz.

Of course when matzah is made, we do not add yeast to the dough. But there are yeast particles in the air and these will inevitably land on the dough where they will act in the same way, consuming glucose and creating carbon dioxide and alcohol. This process is much slower than when yeast is added when bread is made, but the plain dough will rise a little as a result.

The differences between grains and rice

Resh Lakish (together with those sages of the schools of Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Eliezer ben Ya’akov) claim that unlike grains, rice does not ferment when water is added to it. Instead it spoils. That’s why it may be eaten on Passover (unless of course you are an Ashkenazi Jew, in which case you still can’t eat it, but for another reason we’re not going to get into). Is this in fact the case?

I know next to nothing about plant biology. But Dr Angus Murphy does. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Plant Science at the University of Maryland, and wrote the textbook on plant physiology. Dr. Murphy was kind enough to have a long chat with me over the phone and he agreed with the suggestion that grains and rice do very different things when mixed with water. The wheat seed is surrounded by the endosperm, which is itself covered by the aluerone layer. This aleurone is rich in amylase which as you recall is needed to breakdown starch into glucose (which is eaten by yeast which releases carbon dioxide and alcohol which causes the dough to rise…) However (most species of) rice do not contain this aleurone layer. So they have very little amylase, which means that it takes them a much longer time to convert starch into glucose. In fact it takes so long that by the time there is enough yeast in the dough for it to start to rise, bacteria in the air will have colonized the mixture and started breaking down the proteins in the dough. And that protein breakdown is what makes the mixture spoil, and which is what the Talmud calls סירחון. To conclude, Professor Murphy thought that the Talmud’s description of the difference between grain and rice was firmly based in plant biology.

The fine print and the final verdict

Distribution of variou types of amylases in rice grains. (Beta-Amylase activity was expressed in terms of maltose mg liberated in 3 min at 30°C by 1 g of ground rice samples.) From Ryu Shinke, Hiroshi Nishira & Narataro Mugibayashi. Types of Amylases in Rice Grains. Agricultural and Biological Chemistry 1973; 37:10, 2437-2438

Of course things are a little more complicated than that. (They always are.) Different kinds of wheat flour contain different amounts of amylase. Fine bleached white flour contains less amylase than say whole wheat flour, because the aleurone layer in whole wheat flour has not been broken down. Similarly, different species of rice contain different amounts of amylase, so that while standard white rice has very little, brown rice has considerably more. During talmudic times, the wheat flour would have been far less processed than any of the flour we would use today. As a result it would contain more amylase, and would have risen faster than would today’s four-water mixtures.

But as a rule of thumb, the Talmud is, biochemically speaking, spot on. When mixed with water, the five species of grain from which matzah may be made do undergo fermentation even without the addition of yeast, while rice will spoil long before the fermentation process becomes noticeable.

Talmudology wishes all its readers a very happy Passover (or Easter).

From the Passover Archives: How the Sarajevo Haggadah was Saved. Twice.

But First, a Note From Talmudology:

Since this post was first published in 2018, Talmudology received additional information from Zvonimir Snagic, who identified himself as the great-nephew of Dr. Jozo Petrovic. Petrovic was director of the State Museum when the Sarajevo Haggadah housed there was hidden from the Nazis. Mr. Snagic supplied Talmudology with both testimony from his family and evidence that Dr. Petrovic played at least as large a role in the story as did Devis Korut. We have amended the post in light of this new information, and are grateful to Mr. Snagic.

Of all the medieval illuminated Haggadot that exist, the Sarajevo Haggadah is perhaps the most famous.  It is thought to have been created in Barcelona around 1350, and today it is on display at the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. If you are thinking of visiting it at the museum, plan ahead. The Haggadah is on display Tuesdays and Thursdays, and first Saturday of the month from noon to 1pm.  You may visit at other times, if you pony up more money and let them know in advance. According to the Museum, the Haggadah is "its most valuable holding," and for good reason. It has three sections: the first has 34 full page small biblical illuminations from the creation of the world to the death of Moses. The next is the text of the traditional Haggadah, and the last section contains poems and readings to be read on each of the seven days of Passover.  The illustrations are masterpieces in miniature; deep indigo and red across a golden background, with elegantly elongated Hebrew letters that seem to drip down the page. It is in every way, the gold standard of Haggadot.

The remarkable History of the Sarajevo Haggadah

We know little of the first five-hundred years of the Haggadah. The name of the original owner is not known, and it appears to have been taken out of Spain in 1492, when Jews were expelled by the Alhambra Decree. There is a note written by a Catholic priest, Giovanni Domenico Vistorini, who inspected the Haggadah in 1609 for any anti-Christian content. Vistorini, who was most likely a converted Jew, found nothing objectionable in the Haggadah. "His Latin inscription, Revisto per mi (“Surveyed by me”)" wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks "runs with a casual fluidity beneath the last, painstakingly calligraphed lines of the Hebrew text." The Haggadah then disappeared for almost three centuries, until it was sold to the National Museum by a Joseph Kohen in 1894. 

“The Haggada rescue story could, therefore, be placed in the category of verbal communication of a narrow circle of people that share a common past, and in their repeated remembrances of the event, the story becomes rich with new forms and meanings. Such a tale has not yet become a fully formed historical story (legend) as it is known in the theory and history of literature, with the strong likelihood that in the future such a tale may become a standardized verbal communication pattern of past events.
”

— Kemal Bakaršić. The Story of the Sarajevo Haggada. Judaica Librarianship 1995: 9(1–2); 135-143.

Jozo Petrovic & Dervis Korut save the Haggadah

That the Sarajevo Haggadah had survived that long was highly improbable, but a series of even more unlikely events were to come.  On April 16, 1942 the Nazis invaded Sarajevo and immediately destroyed the city's eight synagogues. The director of the State Museum at that time was an archaeologist, Dr. Jozo Petrovic (1892-1967), a Croat from Bosnia. It was Petrovic who was charged with giving a tour to a group of high-ranking Nazis that included the much feared General Johann Fortner. They were looking for the Haggadah to add to their proposed "Museum of an Extinct Race," and during this whole episode, it was in Dr. Petrovic's briefcase. The visit lasted about one hour, and before his departure General Fortner turned to Dr. Petrovic. “Und jetz, bitte, Qbergeben Sie mir die Haggadah!" (And now, please, hand me the Haggadah!) Geraldine Brooks picks up the story:

The museum director feigned dismay. “But, General, one of your officers came here already and demanded the Haggadah,” he said. “Of course, I gave it to him.."...

“What officer?” Fortner barked. “Name the man!”

The reply was deft: “Sir, I did not think it was my place to require a name.”

Petrovic had come from Belgrade to run the museum, and he was not familiar with local villages and populations. He therefore asked another librarian, Dervis M. Korkut, to move the Haggadah out of Sarajevo. Korut agreed, and (according to one version) he hid it in the mosque of a small nearby village. There an Imam kept an eye on it and returned it at the end of the war.  The Haggadah had been saved by brave Muslims.

Whoever saves one human life...

“The man so determined to protect a Jewish book was the scion of a prosperous, highly regarded family of Muslim alims, or intellectuals, famous for producing judges of Islamic law.”

— Geraldine Brooks. The Book of Exodus. The New Yorker, Dec 3, 2007.

While the Koruts are best remembered for the role of Dervis in saving the Sarajevo Haggadah, it is not this achievement of which the family is most proud. “In our family, the Haggadah is a detail,” his son said.“What my father did for Jewish people—that is the biggest thing that we, in our family, have to be proud of.”

In 1942, shortly after hiding the Haggadah, a sixteen-year-old girl named Mira Papo came to Korut and asked to be hidden. The family took her in, dressed her as a Muslim, and passed her off as their maid. Four months later they arranged for Mira to join her aunt at an area on the Dalmatian coast where there was no Nazi presence. She survived the war and later moved to Israel. And then, in 1994, Mira wrote a testimony of her rescue and submitted it Yad Vashem.  Korut Dervis, who had died in 1969, and his wife Servet were added to the names of the Righteous Among the Nations. Servet received a certificate, a pension, and the right to Israeli citizenship.  

Just when the story seemed to have reached its conclusion, another dramatic episode began.  In 1999, at the height of the atrocities of the civil war in Kosovo, the Korut’s youngest daughter Lamija, and her Muslim husband were forced from their home by Serbian militiamen. They were sent to a refugee camp in which the conditions were so appalling that they were forced to flee. The couple were refused asylum by France and Sweden, and in desperation they turned to the small Jewish community of Skopje in Macedonia.  Somehow, Lamija still had with her the certificate that Yad Vashem had given to her mother. She showed it to Victor Mizrahi, the president of the community, and four days later, Lamija and her husband landed in Tel Aviv. The Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was at the airport to welcome them. “Today, we are closing a great circle in that the state of Israel, which emerged from the ashes, gives refuge to the daughter of those who saved Jews,” he said. And then, in the chaos of the media frenzy at the airport Lamija heard someone calling her in Serbo-Croation.

“It was a good feeling, to have someone speaking your language,” she said. But she had no idea who it could be, greeting her so warmly. Pushing through the crowd was a slender, wiry man she had never seen before, with a shock of dark hair and a mustache. Opening his arms, he introduced himself, and Lamija fell into the embrace of Davor Bakovic, the son of Mira Papo.

The Haggadah is restored

It's a remarkable story, which I hope you will share at your Pesach Seder when you reach the passage שפיך חמתך על הגוים - "pour out Your wrath on the Gentiles who do not know You..." But having taken a deep breath and dried our eyes, let's return to the Haggadah itself. In her 2008 novel The People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks opens in Sarajevo, where, under the watch of staff from the United Nations and security officers from the State Museum, an Australian conservator works on the Sarajevo Haggadah.

Pataki at work repairing the Sarajevo Haggadah. Photo courtesy of Andrea Pataki.

In fact the real Hagaddah did undergo conservation, but it was carried out by Andrea Pataki, from Stuttgart, Jean-Marie Arnolt of Paris, and the late Prof. Bezalel Narkiss, Professor Emeritus of Art History at the Hebrew University. These three experts wrote of their experience in conserving the Haggadah in a paper published in The Paper Conservator in 2005. For those of you who let your subscription lapse, you can find a copy here.

Andrea Pataki is a book conservator of world renown. For almost a decade she led the Studiengang für Papierrestaurierung, the Book and Paper Conservation Program at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, before taking up her present position as a professor at the Technical University of Cologne. Pataki is not Jewish, but had lost Jewish relatives in the Holocaust. Recalling her own role in the project, she never considered it significant that she was a Gentile born in Vienna now repairing a manuscript once pursued by the Nazis. Instead, she noted that she was hired because of her expertise and experience. Her own background was of little consequence. And that is how it should be.

In December 2001 Pataki spent nine days repairing the Haggadah at the Union Bank in Sarajevo. Each day, she recalled later in in an academic paper,

... the manuscript was brought to the 'conservation lab' in its metal box which was opened by representatives of the Museum. Working hours were from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, after which the manuscript was locked in its box and promptly returned to the vault of the Union Bank. As a consequence, it was necessary to stop treatment each day at a stage at which the manuscript could be closed and put away safely.This meant making sure that all repairs would have adequate time to dry during the day, which required a great deal of planning and foresight.

Pataki found that the original covers of the Haggadah, which had certainly been made of vellum, were lost. In their place were cheap cardboard covers in a Turkish floral design, which were entirely orthogonal to the style of the Haggadah. Several sections, called quires, were detached from the rest of the book and needed to be carefully sewn back into place.  The book joints, where the outer boards of the cover meet the spine, had broken. This allowed Pataki access to the binding underneath. She repaired one of the four cords that ran vertically down the spine and around which the quires are sewn. The joints were reattached. Finally, she repaired the head a tail caps at the top and bottom of the spine with new calf leather that had been specially dyed for this restoration.

Of all the damage that the Haggadah had suffered, none was more important than the wine stains, just like those found on the pages of family Haggadot to this day.  Here is Pataki’s assessment:

The ritual of washing the hands twice during the ceremony had resulted in water stains on the parchment and smudges and smearing of pigments. The ceremony also calls for the drinking of four cups of wine and consumption of different foods dipped in salt water, before and during the festive meal. This activity resulted in many stains and discoloured areas on the pages which call for ritual drinking and eating…

What was to a conservator a sign of damage and discoloration was to the Jewish community a symbol of continuity. The stains were a testament that the Sarajevo Haggadah had not been left on a shelf, but had been used at the table, guiding the Seder night for hundreds of years.

“Due to the use of the manuscript on the Passover table for many generations, the main damage to the text-block had been caused by liquid. ”

— Pataki A., Narkiss, B., Arnoult, J. The conservation of the Sarajevo Haggadah, The Paper Conservator, 2005: 29:1, 63-66.

The Sarajevo Haggadah as a symbol of  Tolerance and Hope

Neal Kritz, a lawyer at the United States Institute for Peace, was in Sarajevo in the late 1990s. He was part of a delegation that focused on the restoration of the justice system and the atrocities that had occurred during the Bosnian civil war. Kritz recalled how the Bosnian Serbs had demanded the Sarajevo Haggadah be displayed in Banja Luka, the de facto capital of the newly created Serb republic.  It was their treasure too, they claimed; it did not just belong to the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their demands were rejected, and the Haggadah remained in Sarajevo, where a new display of it opened there only last month. Kritz received a token of gratitude from the Chief Prosecutor of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovnia. It was, of course, a facsimile edition of the Sarajevo Haggadah, which had now come to symbolize efforts to make peace between Bosnians and Serbs. And in November 2017, UNESCO added the Sarajevo Haggadah to their Memory of the World Register to mark, naturally, the International Day for Tolerance.

Over the last seventy years the Sarajevo Haggadah has twice been saved. First, three Muslims risked their lives to rescue it from those who sought to annihilate the Jewish people. And then it was saved from the ruins of time by an expert from the very country from which so much hate had originated.  The last word goes to Mirsad Sijarić, the Director of the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina: "The Sarajevo Haggadah is physical proof of the openness of a society in which fear of the Other has never been an incurable disease."

Chullin 140b ~ Ornithology, Emotions, and the Reasons for the Commandments

We are just two days away from finishing the long tractate called Chullin, which dealt with all manner of questions about kosher meat and poultry. In the final chapter we are studying the details of a rather different issue: the command to frighten away the mother bird if you wish to eat the eggs she is incubating. This commandment is called שילוח הקן – shiluach haken, (lit. “sending away the nest”). We will discuss some ornithological issues and see how they might impact our understanding of the command.

Here are the details in the Torah:

דברים כב,ו–ז

כִּ֣י יִקָּרֵ֣א קַן־צִפּ֣וֹר ׀ לְפָנֶ֡יךָ בַּדֶּ֜רֶךְ בְּכָל־עֵ֣ץ ׀ א֣וֹ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֶפְרֹחִים֙ א֣וֹ בֵיצִ֔ים וְהָאֵ֤ם רֹבֶ֙צֶת֙ עַל־הָֽאֶפְרֹחִ֔ים א֖וֹ עַל־הַבֵּיצִ֑ים לֹא־תִקַּ֥ח הָאֵ֖ם עַל־הַבָּנִֽים׃ שַׁלֵּ֤חַ תְּשַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־הָאֵ֔ם וְאֶת־הַבָּנִ֖ים תִּֽקַּֽח־לָ֑ךְ לְמַ֙עַן֙ יִ֣יטַב לָ֔ךְ וְהַאֲרַכְתָּ֖ יָמִֽים׃

If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.

That’s it. Two sentences. But have no fear - there are at least twelve pages of discussion about this in the Talmud, which raises all sorts of questions. Like this one, asked by Rabbi Zeira:

חולין קמ,ב

בעי ר' זירא יונה על ביצי תסיל מהו תסיל על ביצי יונה מהו

If a yonah (pigeon) is resting upon the eggs of a tasil, [a kosher bird resembling a pigeon,] what is the halakha with regard to sending away the mother bird from the nest? Likewise, if a tasil is resting upon the eggs of a yonah (pigeon), what is the halakha?

אמר אביי ת"ש עוף טמא רובץ על ביצי עוף טהור וטהור רובץ על ביצי עוף טמא פטור משילוח הא טהור וטהור חייב דלמא בקורא

Abaye said: Come and hear that which is taught in the Mishna (on 138b): In a case where a non-kosher bird is resting upon the eggs of a kosher bird, or a kosher bird is resting upon the eggs of a non-kosher bird, one is exempt from sending away the bird. One may infer from the mishna that in a case involving a kosher bird and kosher eggs, [e.g., a tasil resting on the eggs of a pigeon, one is obligated to send away the mother bird. The Gemara rejects this:] Perhaps this inference applies only to the case of a koreh, (? female pheasant) , which normally rests upon the eggs of other birds. Since this is its normal behavior, one is obligated to send it away even if it rests upon the eggs of another kosher bird. This may not be the case with regard to a tasil or pigeon.

Let’s try and figure all this out. First, what are the identities of these three birds mentioned: the yonah, the tasil and the koreh?

Male and Female Bird Plumage

The Yonah is fairly easy to identify; there is unanimous agreement that it a dove. Or a pigeon. Confused? They are both members of the species Columbida: The common (or domestic) pigeon is Columba livia domestica, and the mourning dove is Columbidae Zenaida macroura. Moving right along.

The Tasil is a bit more challenging. Rashi declares that it is “a tahor [ie kosher] bird, similar to the yona.” And that’s how it is translated in the Schottenstein Talmud. Marcus Jastrow wrote in his dictionary that is “a species of small dove.” The Koren notes that the tasil might be “a bird similar to a pigeon, or to a laughing dove, a small dove native to Eretz Yisrael.” So a bit of a mystery.

The identity of the Koreh seems to be easy. At least that what it seems from the translations. The Soncino translates it as a partridge, as is does the Schottenstein. The Koren English translation is even more specific: “This bird is identified as the sand partridge, a desert bird of the genus Ammoperdix in the pheasant family Phasiandae.” Wow. That’s some impressive ornithology.

Actually that specific identification is very important, because there is a debate as to whether this whole business of sending away the bird brooding over some eggs applies only to the female bird, and not to a male that is incubating. Here is a photo of a male sand partridge. It is grey with wavy flanks and beautiful white markings over the beak and behind the eyes. The female is a drab sandy brown color.

Male sand partridge. Note the beautiful white markings behind the eyes.

A lady sand partridge. No white facial markings.

According to the Talmud there is agreement that the command of shiluach haken does not apply to male birds. But there is a dispute about this specific bird, the koreh - our sand partridge. Rabbi Eliezer ruled that when it comes to this particular species, the male bird that is brooding must be frightened away before taking the eggs, just like the female.

תניא נמי הכי זכר דעלמא פטור קורא זכר ר"א מחייב וחכמים פוטרין

With regard to a male bird in general, one is exempt from the mitzva of sending it away, but with regard to a male koreh, Rabbi Eliezer deems one obligated to send it away from the nest, and the Rabbis deem one exempt from sending it away.

This requirement only makes sense if the two are readily distinguishable at a distance, and thanks to these nice photos, we now know they are.

By the way, have you wondered why this bird is called the קורא - koreh, which from the hebrew root ק–ר–א, k-r-h which means to call out? Apparently the bird has a prominent call which is heard long before it can be seen. Which perhaps gave its name: “the one that calls out.” (If you want to hear that call, click here. To be honest, to me it sounds like a slower version of the swish of a baby’s heartbeat heard with ultrasound. But that’s just me.)

Who is sitting on the eggs? Mom or dad?

As we noted, the Talmud rules that the commandment of shiluah haken applies only to the female of the species. Should the father be incubating, no such command applies (except for the sand partridge, as we just discussed). Here, for example, is what the great Maimonides wrote in his code, the Mishneh Torah:

רמב’ם משנה תורה הל׳ שחיטה. יג:י

זָכָר שֶׁמְּצָאוֹ רוֹבֵץ עַל הַקֵּן פָּטוּר מִלְּשַׁלֵּחַ

If a male was found incubating in the nest, there is no obligation to send him away [before taking the eggs or chicks].

This is also the ruling of the Shulchan Aruch, the Code of Jewish Law. Which raises the question - just how common is it for the male of the species to incubate the eggs? This is, of course a very challenging question to answer, because it all depends: which birds (European, American, African)? Birds of prey? Backyard birds? But given that, can we make a generalization?

Yale’s Ornithologist-in-Chief to the rescue

For an answer, Talmudology turned to Richard Prum, who is both the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, and the Curator of Ornithology, (and Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology,) at Yale’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, in New Haven, Connecticut. And here is what he told us:

“The brooding behavior of birds has evolved extensively among birds of the world. About 38% of bird species have female only incubation. About 50% of bird species have male and female incubation, and 6% of bird species have male only incubation.”

This certainly came as a bit of a surprise. It turns out then that you will find a male brooding in the nest a lot of the time! Prof. Prum also noted that these behaviors are not randomly distributed among birds. Closely related species of birds tend to have similar incubation behavior, but higher groups may differ extensively. 

In addition, most of the species with substantial eggs have female only incubation. These groups include most game birds and waterfowl like chickens, quail, francolins, guineafowl, ducks, geese, etc. In most of these species, the male takes no part in parental care.  That last bit is really important, because it is just these kinds of kosher wild birds that are subject to the law of sending the mother-bird away. In most of these species the male takes no part. So the Talmud was spot on, so to speak, in limiting the commandment to these kinds of fowl. But there is another complication. Prof. Prum also wrote that “in many species with shared incubation, it is impossible to distinguish the male from the female by plumage.”

reasons For the Commandments

There is a well-known philosophical debate about whether it is appropriate to give reasons behind the 613 mitzvot (commandments) found in the Torah. Much has been written and many fine minds were engaged with this question as it pertains to the commandment of shiluach haken. Perhaps it is an example of imitatio dei:God is kind, so you should be kind to his creatures. Therefore send the mother bird away so she cannot get upset when you remove her eggs. As an example of this train of thought (and there are many) here is the commentary of the famous Moshe ben Nachman, (1194-1270), better known as the Ramban:

הטעם לבלתי היות לנו לב אכזרי ולא נרחם, או שלא יתיר הכתוב לעשות השחתה לעקור  המין, אע"פ שהתיר השחיטה במין ההוא. והנה ההורג האם והבנים ביום אחד, או לוקח אותם בהיות להם דרור לעוף, כאלו יכרית המין ההוא

If the nest of a bird chances to be in front of you: Also this commandment is explained by "it and its son do not slaughter on one day" (Leviticus 22:28); since the reason in both of them is that we should not have a cruel heart and [then] not have mercy, or that the verse should not permit us to be destructive to destroy the species, even though it allowed slaughter within that species. And behold, one who kills the mother and the children on one day or takes them when they are 'free to fly' is as if he cuts off that species.

A similar reason is cited by the French French commentator Rashbam Samuel ben Meir (1085 – c. 1158). It it prevents cruelty (שדומה לאכזריות ורעבתנות). So too the Spanish commentator R. Bechayei (1255-1340):

שלח תשלח את האם, טעם המצוה ללמדנו על מדת הרחמנות, ושנתרחק מן האכזריות שהיא תכונה רעה בנפש, וכעניין שאסרה תורה (ויקרא כב) לשחוט אותו ואת בנו ביום אחד, וכעניין שנצטוינו בתורה שבעל פה דרך רחמנות לא דרך אכזריות בשחיטה בצואר ולא מן העורף, והוא דעת הרב בספר המורה, וכבר הזכרתיו למעלה" 

The reason for the command is to teach us the quality of mercy, and to distance us from cruelty…just as the Torah prohibited the slaughter of a mother and its calf on the same day…

Maimonides, in his Guide for the Perpexled, also weighed in on the reason for this command, and decided it was all about kindness:

Guide to the Perplexed, Vol. 3 chap 48:

The same reason applies to the law which enjoins that we should let the mother fly away when we take the young. The eggs over which the bird sits, and the young that are in need of their mother, are generally unfit for food, and when the mother is sent away she does not see the taking of her young ones, and does not feel any pain. In most cases, however, this commandment will cause man to leave the whole nest untouched, because [the young or the eggs], which he is allowed to take, are, as a rule, unfit for food. If the Law provides that such grief should not be caused to cattle or birds, how much more careful must we be that we should not cause grief to our fellowmen.

On the other hand…

There are a few sources that criticize the entire enterprise of ascribing reasons for any of the commandments in general, and of shiluach haken in particular. Like this one in the Mishnah itself:

ברכות לג,ב

משנה :האומר על קן ציפור יגיעו רחמיך …משתקין אותו

If a person adds in his prayers: “Your mercy is extended to a bird’s nest, so too extend Your mercy to us…he is silenced

Why such drastic action for reciting such a nice prayer? Here is the talmudic discussion:

פליגי בה תרי אמוראי במערבא רבי יוסי בר אבין ורבי יוסי בר זבידא חד אמר מפני שמטיל קנאה במעשה בראשית וחד אמר מפני שעושה מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא רחמים ואינן אלא גזרות

Two amora’im in Eretz Yisrael disputed this question; Rabbi Yosei bar Avin and Rabbi Yosei bar Zevida; one said that this was because he engenders jealousy among God’s creations, [as it appears as though he is protesting the fact that the Lord favored one creature over all others]. And one said that this was because he transforms the attributes of the Holy One, Blessed be He, into expressions of mercy, when they are nothing but decrees of the King that must be fulfilled without inquiring into the reasons behind them.

So there are two opinions as to why this prayer is forbidden: the first, because it is inherently unfair to single out the incubating bird for a dose of extra divine mercy. What about the rest of the animal kingdom? And the second, because in general, the commands have nothing to do with mercy. They are just the commandments of God. And if they are kind, well that’s an added benefit; but even if they were cruel they are there to be obeyed.

Ornithology and today’s daf

Now back to the observations of Prof. Prum, and today’s page of Talmud. If it is indeed the case that:

1) male and female birds are often equally likely to be incubating and

2) in many species with shared incubation, it is impossible to distinguish the male from the female and

3) that male incubators are exempt from commandment of shiluach haken,

then what becomes of the school of thought that ascribes mercy to the reason for it in the first place? Don’t male incubators, who have built the nest and are just as invested in the project as are the females, don’t they deserve some mercy too? And why exempt male birds when male and females are so often indistinguishable?

There is increasing evidence that all kinds of animals experience emotions just like we do. And it’s not only playful chimps and depressed dogs. Elephants mourn. Pigs kept in boring pens show behavior that in humans we would call depression. Rats enjoy being tickled.

And birds? Well, some birds like to surf at the beach, a behaviour that does not “seem to provide any obvious function apart from enjoyment — they look like they are having fun.” And birds have self-control. Really. Remember the Marshmallow test? (We reviewed it back in April 2015 when we learned Ketuvot 83. If you’ve forgotten, read this and then come back….) Well it turns out that when a (particularly smart and cooperative) parrot was given the bird equivalent of the test, he was successful 90% of the time, enduring delays of up to 15 minutes. The researchers noted that to do this “the parrot had to postpone the immediate available reward to gain more desirable future rewards, maintaining the choice to delay, and tolerate the frustration of this self-inflicted delay.” So, yeah, birds have self control. The more we study, the more we realize that animals too, have emotions. So if sending away the mother bird might reduce her grieving, let’s do it.

“Pairs of bluebirds in my backyard, getting ready to build their nest, visit every empty nestbox, hoping in and out multiple times, the male alternating with the female...After weeks of scouting, the male puts a few branches or grass sems into one of the boxes, then lets the female guard the actual nest, while he guards the site. The drawn out decision process has reached its conclusion. Do bluebirds have free will?”

— Frans de Waal. Mama's Last Hug: Animal emotions and what they tell us about ourselves. W.H. Norton 2019. p222